Submission or the drop of a fi

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorCollege, Undergraduate February 2008

download word file, 5 pages 0.0

Downloaded 3 times

"I shivered, looking toward the street, where up the alley through the tunneling dark, three mounted policemen loomed beneath the circular, snow-sparkling beam of the street lamp, grasping their horses by their bridles, the heads of both men and animals bent close, as though plotting; the leather of saddles and leggings shining. Three white men and three black horses. Then a car passed and they showed in full relief, their shadows flying like dreams across the sparkle of snow and darkness. And, as I turned to leave, one of the horses violently tossed its head and I saw the gauntleted fist yanked down. Then there was a wild neigh and the horse plunged off in the dark, the crisp, frantic clanking of metal and the stomping of hooves followed me to the door. Perhaps this was something for Brother Jack to know." ~Invisible Man, pg. 337 Within the posed partnership between the whites and the blacks in the Brotherhood is an underlying sense of authority and domination.

Although a picture of alliance is what the whites wish to paint, even shallow reading brings out the irrefutable control which they possess over their black brothers. Unknowably, the narrator is under this control throughout the entire story, despite the recurrent instances that stare into his blinded view. The above passage is not a particular episode in the novel, yet rather a metaphorical representation of a main theme: control versus rebellion. It also acts as a foreshadowing for the latter section of the novel, as well as a summation for the entire account in general.

At this particular point in the novel, the narrator is just getting into the Brotherhood and is about to take part in his first rally with his brothers. He is not yet in tune with the...